


To say goodbye

by Bruguer



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Based on a True Story, F/M, Monologue, Soulmates, the meaning of love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29544546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bruguer/pseuds/Bruguer
Summary: How is someone supposed to react when they tell you over the phone that your ex is dying?Raquel Murillo made herself that question over and over again when she got a call telling her exactly that, the one that once were the love of his life, was dying.A monologue from her point of the view of the story, their story, diving in the true meanings of love.BASED ON A TRUE STORY (please read the notes)
Relationships: Raquel Murillo/Professor | Sergio Marquina
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24





	To say goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> Okay so this is so different from everything I have ever written, I gotta say this is so personal to me altought its not my story.  
> This monologue is based on the story of the mother of my godmother, I have always been marveled by their story and I always insisted that she should write a book about it but she never did and she always told me that I could share her story with my words, but it was nor will it ever be the same, so in the end I decided to post it here, when it wont have that much of an impact but at least you can enjoy it like I always did.   
> Also I kinda gave myself the right to use these wonderful characters to tell this beautiful story, so its a little diferent from the usual stories but I tried to keep their character essences and stories.   
> I listed to the song "Always Remember Us This Way" by Lady Gaga while writting this so fi you want to listen to it while reading, it would make more sense.  
> Please enjoy!!  
> Lots of love and take care.  
> Sorry for the mistakes

**To say goodbye.**

  
  


What comes to your mind when you think of love? Bliss, desire, endearment, fondness, family, marriage… They say love is not for everyone, love is mysterious in its shapes, intensities; love is mysterious when it comes to timing, love is mysterious when it comes to what he means to me.

Perhaps it was not love what we had, perhaps it was friendship, or not.

That question has been hanging in my mind since forever, ever since I met him, ever since I married him, ever since we got divorced, ever since he left.

The question hangs from the branches of my brain, hunts my memories and my what ifs. Walking silently in the halls of my head, hiding in the corners, like ghosts, like souls, like possibilities.

People often ask me what I did it, why did I answer the call, why did I come back. The answer is simply yet impossible to explain, no one would get it, not even myself at the time, I like to believe that I do now.

_ Love. _

Maybe it was love.

It's funny to think how everything started, and beginnings are a lot, I could start by explaining why our marriage did not work out, or the demons on my back at the time, the ones that I still carry ever since that first slap, the one that haunted me for years, that didn’t allow me to trust anyone else, not even Sergio. 

That broke me, and prevented me from loving again, for trusting love again. But I guess I did, and that was the thing that scared me the most.

I used to bite my tongue a lot, afraid of so many things, afraid of everything going wrong, of the story repeating itself. Every little red flag frightened me indescribably and I lived in constant fear. I didn’t know myself, I couldn’t see myself, I was so broken that I felt like a floating being, without any direction, knowledge, without any goals and I didn’t like that. Sergio helped me a lot, I never had any doubt about it but unfortunately he wasn’t what I needed at the moment, he represented everything I was trying to run away from, even if he was such a better version of it, we were a couple in the end and in some ways or another my happiness depended on him, on us and although my heart craved that dependence, that safeness he brought to me, it wasn’t what I as a woman needed and deep know I always knew that the timing wasn’t right. We were meant to be, we just arrived too late or maybe it was too early.

We were young, at least in the eyes of many, and he was just perfect, like a bandaid on a wound. The problem with those is that ripping them off is inevitable and it hurts like bitch and you never know if the wound actually heals, cause sometimes it's just covering it up preventing the wound from breathing, healing. And I simply didn’t want to risk it, even if it felt so good.

And then there was also his side, he wasn’t a company people, never was. And as much as he tried to, I could see that he wasn’t meant for that life: the wife, the house, the children, the normalcy. He was a wild soul, a quiet and shy one but ultimately wild, and he wasn’t used to sharing everything about him, he had secrets, a lot accompanied by secret personalities, insecurities that he would projectify on me, without meaning of harm, but they ended up harming. They always do. 

He was an idealist, a dreamer, his head often floated in the clouds like he was part of a fairy tale, an action movie, a theater script, he was a creature of the books, of their stories, their words, their characters. He would spend hours marveling at the ridiculous things in life, imagining the wildest, more random dreams. Instead of just living, he did not settled with the boring things life had to offer, he resented life and destiny, so he did his best to create his own destiny, being always a step ahead with a plan, and ultimately I was never on his plans, and deep down he didn't like that, he didn't want to accept that tiny yet powerful fact.

“You're my wildest dream” he would often say, and as my cheeks turned red i couldn't help but notice the way he talked like if I wasn't real, like we were just too good to be true, like I was in fact just a dream, not a reality.

I was and still are also a wild soul, a storm, too much to handle according to many individuals, the eye of the hurricane, a dangerous yet intriguing soul and the funny part of the story is that he was willing to dive in, we both were, despite going against the current, despite going against our internal voices simply because it felt so good, so right. Until it didn’t.

_ Does love ends? _

Does it work like an infinite fountain or does it dry like a river under too much sun?

I wish I had the answer to this, but I don’t and I believe nobody does.

In the end we drifted apart, again I can't really explain why, we just did and it hurt even if I knew it was coming, it destroyed me, more that I like to admit, but we both knew that it was the right to do, or least it felt like the right to do. 

We didn’t end on good terms, how could he? and it wasn’t anger nor resentment that floated between us, it was merely disappointment, gloom, the feeling of a broken heart, one that couldn’t do it as much as it desired to, it just couldn’t. And the better way to cope that disappointment was erasing ourselves completely for the each other's life, if we couldn´t be together, then there wasn't any point in establishing any other kind of bond

One day we were in love, and the next one we weren’t. Dead memories, laughter, happiness, our story was left trapped between the 4 walls of the house we used to share.

I´m here right now, in that same house, trying to… trying to feel them, feel him, catch those wonderful moments, hear his laugh, smell him, remember him.

_ Sergio. _

I can feel his lips against my neck, his hands on my waist, I can feel our hearts pounding strongly in the room filling it with noise, disturbing the peace and quiet that it had, filling it with life, filling it with our love story. The souls of our young selfs dancing in the common room to my favorite song stay still, frozen in time, keeping the love that was once alive.

_ I miss him. _

  
  


I had a good life, at least compared to the average these days, I was mostly happy, not fully but mostly and that's all I ever ask for. I didn´t yearned for him as much as I thought I would, of course it felt like losing a part of me but as time passed the quote everyone seems to be so sure of -It would hurt less as time passes- ended up being true, and a few years after the last signature of the divorce papers were signed it stopped hurting. I learned to live with the fact that we were not meant to be, at least not in that time or place, at least not in this life.

Perhaps another one.

Twenty years, that was the time i spend without hearing from him, nothing, his name stood in a dusted corner in my brain, coming occasionally on some of my dreams but disappearing right after the sun rising, we never talked again, we never saw each other nor heard from each other again, that was until the call came.

The phone rang and I picked it up like it was nothing, I was actually waiting for a call that day so when the ringing started I was on my feet quickly.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Raquel Murillo?”

“Yeah she's speaking”

“Oh good we've been trying to reach you all day, you are listed as Sergio Marquina´s emergency contact, he's currently under our care in San Sebastian Hospital…”

It wasn't news that he had not changed his emergency contact after all those years, probably he wasn't even aware of the fact that her name was in those papers. 

It was surreal hearing the news.

How is someone supposed to react when they tell you over the phone that your ex is dying?

Is it acceptable to not feel anything, or in my case… feel everything.

Perhaps with Alberto would have been another story .

But that day my hands started shaking, my chest hurt and I felt this indescribable powerful feeling of dying, of my heart stopping, breaking, shattering, and before I knew it I was curled up in the floor, tears streaming down my cheeks, unable to stop crying.

He was about to die, and he was going to do it alone.

I didn't owe him anything, not a single thing but when the doctor told me that he didn't have any family left and they were desperately looking for someone to care of him, the only answer I could give was… yes.

_ Absolutely. _

I have always been a woman of my word and I vowed all those years ago; In sickness and health. That promise was there, even if we were not married anymore, it felt like my duty, and not just that, it wasn't just a responsibility, I wanted to do it, I couldn't leave him alone. He is my best friend, at least he was for a few years and I needed to do it.

“You don't owe him anything”

People would say when they listen to the huge responsibility and work I was about to take, cause it was hard work. Sickness is a hard thing to live from every point of view and I knew how hard it was to take care of someone with Alzheimer, I did it with mom. But I knew better than anyone that it's even harder to live that completely on your own. I didn't want that from him, I wanted his last days to be as peaceful as they could.

_ He would have done the same for me. _

  
  


I ain't gonna lie, it was awful on so many ways and it wasn't exactly the sickness the hardest part, of course it had its things, but the most atrocious thing was holding all our memories by myself, having the knowledge of everything we had lived; every smile, every kiss, every fight, every tear shed, and tear wiped, every... everything and he wasn't even aware of my name of what he meant to me, what I meant to him.

His eyes told me a story he didn't even remember, and it hurt, it hurt to feel that much, to remember the good days.

And the bad ones too.

But then again, living with him again, felt so so so good.

  
  


The answer to the question of the hanging from brain branches was even more confusing during those days.

Does love ends?

Maybe it does, sometimes. But I think there are exceptions to this rule, and we were one, he was my exception to that rule. Cause I realized that he was in fact the love of my life, and I was madly desperately in love with him. 

And you may be asking if I ever felt bad for realizing that so late, but I wasn't late, we lived what we were supposed to live together all those years ago and our separation was an act of love, love for what we were and what we needed at that moment.

It is something hard to explain, but there was love there and those last days were also full of love.

_ He was my soulmate.  _

  
  


Then it came the hardest part, I had just got him back, and it seemed so unfair to me, so so unfair, but it was time.

Time to say goodbye.

We´re never taught to say goodbye, no one teaches that to us, maybe because no one dares to dive into that dark part of life, the one that hurts the most, no one is ready for it and as much as you are prepared, when the day comes,...

That was the hardest.

Goodbye _Sergio_ , goodbye _lover_ , goodbye _best friend._

  
  


“I adored you with madness, I still do, an always will Raquel”

He remembered me that last day.

He kissed me one last time.

We loved each other to that last day.

A short yet marvelous journey we shared and this life and I prayed to whoever is in charge of the universe to grant me another chance with him, in another life, in many more.

But in this one, everything was said and done in the end and we were both ready… _to say goodbye._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading this story.


End file.
